12:42am: Just to recap the major developments from the search for the Boeing 777 operated by Malaysia Airlines as Flight MH370.•Satellite images taken four days ago were analysed and confirmed, on Thursday, to show two pieces of debris that could be wreckage of the plane. One piece is approximately 24-metres long and the other 5-metres long.•Two surveillance planes were sent to the region, which is roughly 2500km southwest of Perth, to locate the objects.•The RAAF P-3 Orion and US Airforce P-8 Poseidon return to Perth without sighting the debris.•Late on Thursday, Norwegian car carrier Höegh St Petersburg reaches area in southern Indian Ocean where possible debris of the missing Malaysia Airlines MH370 plane was spotted. •Australian officials end search for possible objects from missing plane at midnight on Thursday.•The search will resume at 5.30am Perth time

Latest 03.45 China is sending three warships to join the search for possible pieces of the missing plane in the southern Indian Ocean.

The ships are en route to the area where a satellite image showed two large objects floating about 1,500 miles west of Australia, the National Maritime Search and Rescue Center has said.

They have given no indication as to when they might arrive at the remote site, but earlier Chinese news reports said the ships – the Kunlunshan, the Haikou and the Qiandaohu – had previously been searching near the Indonesian island of Sumatra.

A fourth Chinese vessel, the icebreaker Snow Dragon, is in the western Australian port of Perth following a trip to Antarctica and might join the search.

02.15 Searching for the debris identified in satellite pictures has resumed, faced with difficult conditions and the fact it has likely moved since the images were recorded on March 16.

The immediate task will obviously be to find the debris in the first instanceTh, with the hope that then leads them to data and cockpit voice recorders.

Scientists have developed computer models to effectively play waves and winds backwards, allowing rescue workers to retrace the movements of debris to the site of a crash.

China is sending three warships to join the search for possible pieces of a missing Malaysia Airlines plane in the southern Indian Ocean, the government says.

The ships are on their way to the area where a satellite image showed two large objects floating about 2300 kilometres west of Australia, the National Maritime Search and Rescue Centre said on Friday.

It gave no indication when they might arrive at the remote site, but earlier Chinese news reports said the ships - the Kunlunshan, the Haikou and the Qiandaohu - were searching near the Indonesian island of Sumatra.

The centre said a fourth Chinese vessel, the icebreaker Snow Dragon, is in the western Australian port of Perth following a trip to Antarctica and might join the search.

"Since the plane lost contact, our hearts have been with the lives of the people from different countries on board the plane, including 154 Chinese and six Australians," Xi was quoted as saying by Xinhua news agency.

China thanked Australia for its help in the search in the southern Indian Ocean this week, the report said, where possible debris has been spotted by satellites.

Xi said full efforts should be made as long as there was a glimmer of hope, despite the difficulties searching the remote area.

Australian and American authorities combing an area of the southern Indian Ocean that had offered promise of finding missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 found nothing for a second straight day. The search will resume on Saturday

A second day of searching for the missing Malaysia Airlines plane in a new area of the Indian Ocean has yielded nothing, an Australian official said Friday, dashing hopes of a quick find after the country spotted possible debris in satellite imagery and called it the “best lead” yet in the massive international hunt for a jet missing almost two weeks.

“The last report I have is that nothing of particular significance has been identified in the search today but the work will continue,” acting prime minister Warren Truss told reporters, the Associated Press reports.

His comments came a day after Australia touted “credible” evidence of what could be debris from the plane that vanished March 8 with 239 people aboard, pointing to two objects about 1,500 miles southwest of Australia, in the southern Indian Ocean. That prompted American and Australian search planes to comb the area, but after nothing was found Thursday or Friday, the search was expected to continue Saturday, with Chinese and Japanese aircraft set to arrive in the area.

On Friday, five planes, including three P-3 Orions, made the trip. While search conditions had improved from Thursday, with much better visibility, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority said there were no sightings of plane debris.

Searchers relied mostly on trained spotters aboard the planes scanning the ocean rather than radar because the use of radar found nothing during the first day of the search on Thursday, Australian officials said.

Going forward, the search will focus more on visual sightings because civilian aircraft are being brought in to participate. The military planes will continue to use both radar and spotters.

"Noting that we got no radar detections yesterday, we have replanned the search to be visual. So aircraft flying relatively low, very highly skilled and trained observers looking out of the aircraft windows and looking to see objects," said John Young, manager of the maritime safety authority's emergency response division.

Two Chinese aircraft are expected to arrive in Perth on Saturday to join the search, and two Japanese aircraft will be arriving Sunday, Truss said. A small flotilla of ships coming to Australia from China was still several days away.

"We are doing all that we can, devoting all the resources we can and we will not give up until all of the options have been exhausted," said Truss, who is acting prime minister while Tony Abbott is in Papua New Guinea.

The Telegraph has obtained the full communication record of MH370, including the crucial moments in the lead-up to the disappearance of the Boeing 777 and its 239 passengers. It reveals the messages relayed between the cockpit and air traffic controllers during the period when the plane is believed by investigators to have already been sabotaged.

As the search continues for possible wreckage of the aircraft in the southern Indian Ocean, the transcript marks a further piece of evidence in the baffling mystery of flight MH370. It shows that – according to numerous experts – the two-way banter between Fariq Abdul Hamid, the co-pilot, and air traffic controllers was “perfectly routine”.

Only two features stand out as potentially odd.

The first was a message delivered by the cockpit at 1.07am, saying that the plane was flying at a cruising altitude of 35,000 feet. This message was unnecessary as it repeated a call that had already been delivered six minutes earlier.

Steve Landells, a former British Airways pilot who flew Boeing 777s, told The Telegraph that this second message was not required but he did not regard it as suspicious.

“It could be as simple as the pilot forgetting or not being sure that he had told air traffic controllers he had reached the altitude,” he said. “He might be reconfirming he was at 350 [35,000 feet]. It is not unusual. I wouldn’t read anything into it.”

The other odd feature, which is one of the reasons for suspicions that the plane’s disappearance was deliberate, was that its loss of communications and sharp turn westward occurred during the handover from air traffic controllers in Kuala Lumpur to those in Ho Chi Minh City.

Two minutes after the final message, the transponder was disabled.

“If I was going to steal the aeroplane, that would be the point I would do it,” Stephen Buzdygan, a former British Airways pilot who flew Boeing 777s, told The Telegraph.

“There might be a bit of dead space between the air traffic controllers … It was the only time during the flight they would maybe not have been able to be seen from the ground.”

But the run of messages between MH370 and the ground involved routine calls between the cockpit and air traffic controllers and gives no hint of the drama that was to follow. It is believed Hamid, as co-pilot, was the sole communicator.The Telegraph has repeatedly asked Malaysia Airlines, Malaysia’s Civil Aviation Authority and the office of Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak to confirm the communications record; only the prime minister's office responded, saying it would not release this data.

Missing MH370 carried lithium ion batteries as cargo but not seen as 'dangerous'Published on Mar 21, 2014 6:35 PM

KUALA LUMPUR - Malaysian authorities on Friday confirmed that the missing Malaysia Airline Flight MH370 was carrying some lithium ion batteries in its cargo hold but did not regard them as endangering safety because standard rules were observed in packing the batteries for transportation.

Lithium ion batteries - commonly used in laptops and mobile phones - are prone to overheating and have been known to burst into flames. But this is a relatively rare occurrence although it has prompted some instances of recall of such batteries.

In reply to a question during a press conference here on Friday, Malaysian officials said the cargo on board the missing plane was being investigated but authorities did not regard the lithium ion batteries as dangerous and standard rules were observed in packing the batteries for transportation.

First published March 21st 2014, 1:42 pm 12 hours agoMissing MH370: Families Forced From Hotel By Ferrari F1 Team

LONDON - Grieving relatives of passengers on missing Flight 370 were forced to move out of their hotel Friday because it was booked by the Ferrari Formula One racing team competing in the Malaysian Grand Prix.

F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone told NBC News the booking at the Cyberview Hotel in Kuala Lumpur would have been made long before the Malaysia Airlines jet disappeared two weeks ago.

More than a dozen Chinese family members, who traveled to the Malaysian capital to get updates on the search for the Boeing 777, were transferred to another hotel in the city by the airline on Friday.

Malaysia requested more U.S. assistance on Friday as the search for Flight 370 entered its third week.

In a phone call Friday morning with U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, Malaysia's acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein requested the U.S. consider providing some undersea surveillance equipment, according to a statement from Pentagon press secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby.

"Secretary Hagel assured Minister Hishammuddin that he would assess the availability and utility of military undersea technology for such a task and provide him an update in the very near future," Adm. Kirby said in the statement.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia -- A satellite image released by China on Saturday offered the latest sign that wreckage from a Malaysia Airlines plane lost for more than two weeks could be in a remote stretch of the southern Indian Ocean where planes and ships have been searching for three days.

The image, showing an object 72 feet by 43 feet, was taken around noon Tuesday. The image location was about 75 miles south of where an an Australian satellite viewed two objects two days earlier. The larger object was about as long as the one the Chinese satellite detected.

"The news that I just received is that the Chinese ambassador received a satellite image of a floating object in the southern corridor and they will be sending ships to verify," Malaysian Defense Minister Hishammuddin Hussein told reporters Saturday.

CBS News correspondent Holly Williams reports from Perth, Australia, where the country's search flights are headquartered, that the Chinese government also said a smaller object roughly 40 feet in length was also seen.

While possible clues about the fate of a Malaysia Airlines jet missing for more than two weeks keep coming from satellite images, it was as frustrating as ever Saturday to turn that into actual sightings.

China released a satellite image showing an object floating in a remote stretch of the southern Indian Ocean near where planes and ships have been crisscrossing since similar images from an Australian satellite emerged earlier in the week. China's image, showing an object that appeared to be 22 metres by 13 metres, was taken around noon Tuesday.Australian officials said the location was within the 36,000-square-kilometre area they searched on Saturday, but the object was not found. Australian Maritime Safety Authority spokeswoman Andrea Hayward-Maher said she did not know whether the precise coordinates of the location had been searched, but added that coordinators will use the information to refine the search area.

The authority, which is overseeing the search in the region, said a civil aircraft reported seeing a number of small objects in the search area, including a wooden pallet, but the Royal New Zealand Air Force Orion diverted to the location found only clumps of seaweed. The agency said in a statement that searchers would keep trying to determine whether the objects are related to the lost plane.

19.25 Here is the full AMSA statement on the results of today's search and plans for tomorrow:

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority search operation for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 has concluded for today.

During Saturday’s search activities a civil aircraft tasked by AMSA reported sighting a number of small objects with the naked eye, including a wooden pallet, within a radius of five kilometres.

A Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF) P3 Orion aircraft with specialist electro-optic observation equipment was diverted to the location, arriving after the first aircraft left but only reported sighting clumps of seaweed.

The RNZAF Orion dropped a datum marker buoy to track the movement of the material. A merchant ship in the area has been tasked to relocate and seek to identify the material.

The search area experienced good weather conditions on Saturday with visibility of around 10 kilometres and moderate seas.

The Royal Australian Air Force, the Royal New Zealand Air Force, two chartered civil aircraft and two merchant ships supported Saturday’s search effort in a 36,000 square kilometre search area in the Australian Search and Rescue Region.

Since AMSA assumed coordination of the search on Monday 17 March, 15 sorties have been flown and more than 150 hours of air time has been committed by the air crews to the task.

Four military aircraft assisted in today’s search, as well as two ultra-long range jets. Ten State Emergency Service (SES) volunteers from Western Australia were tasked as air observers today, along with two AMSA mission coordinators on the civilian aircraft. AMSA runs a training program across the country to train SES volunteers in air observation for land and sea searches.

The Royal Australian Navy’s HMAS Success has arrived in the search area. Two merchant ships are also in the search area.

The search will resume tomorrow and further attempts will be made to establish whether the objects sighted are related to MH370.

This evening China provided a satellite image to Australia possibly showing a 22.5 metre floating object in the southern Indian Ocean. AMSA has plotted the position and it falls within Saturday’s search area. The object was not sighted on Saturday.

AMSA will take this information into account in tomorrow’s search plans.

18.08 AMSA has released this map showing the locations of both the initial search area and of the latest sighting:

19.49 We're wrapping up our live coverage of today's developments in the search for MH370. We leave you with our latest report Malaysia Airlines MH370: Investigators focus probe on 'deliberate act' by pilots.

19.30 Dr John Blaxland, a senior fellow from Australian National University, has told Chinese state news agency Xinhua that if the measures of the latest object are correct, it could be a wing:

Dr. Blaxland, from ANU's Strategic and Defense Studies Center, said if the measurements of 22 meters long and 13 meters wide are correct, they are more consistent with a wing of a Boeing 777 airliner.

Asked about whether the newly spotted object would be the one spotted in an earlier satellite image, Blaxland said they don't seem to be the same object.

"It's similar shaped, but if the measurements (are correct), then this is slightly wider," he said. ...

The object is said to be 120 km west to the object spotted by American satellite on March 16 which has formed the basis for the current search operation coordinated by Australia.

Blaxland said if that is the case, then the two objects are " highly unlikely" to be the same object or the two wings of the same plane because the ocean current is from west to east.

But in a later email reply to Xinhua, Blaxland said this picture suggests the new imagery is not to the west but in the south of the area currently being patrolled.

At a sprawling hotel complex in Beijing, the relatives rise each morning and eat breakfast - at least those who can muster the appetite - before attending a briefing on the missing plane. Then follows another long day of watching the news and waiting, before an evening briefing that inevitably offers little more information.

Amid the many theories and scant and often dubious, contradictory and disavowed findings, the relatives' patience has at times worn thin.

Following a brief meeting Saturday with Malaysia Airlines and Malaysian government officials, impatience turned to anger as relatives erupted in shouts of "We want to know what the reality is," and "Give us back our loved ones."

"The family members are extremely indignant," read a statement issued by relatives following the meeting. "We believe we have been strung along, kept in the dark and lied to by the Malaysian government."

In Kuala Lumpur, Malaysian Defense Minister Hishammuddin Hussein called on "all parties to be understanding during this extraordinary and difficult time," and said officials would "do everything in our power" to keep the relatives informed.

"I'm psychologically prepared for the worst and I know the chances of them coming back alive are extremely small," said Nan Jinyan, sister-in-law of missing passenger Yan Ling, a 29-year-old engineer who had worked for the last four years at a company that designs equipment for heart patients.

Like many of the relatives, Nan said that her helpless feelings were worsened by being almost entirely dependent on the media for news, and that she was deeply unhappy with what she called the vague and often contradictory information coming from Malaysia Airlines.

"If they can't offer something firm, they ought to just shut up," said Nan, who is representing the family as well as Yan's 23-year-old girlfriend.

Nan said Yan traveled frequently and had not talked about the Malaysia trip with his family, who come from the eastern province of Jiangsu.

"The last time he talked to us was about half a month before this happened. He travels quite frequently on business trips anyway, so we don't chat about his business trips on the phone," Nan said.

Volunteer psychologist Paul Yin, who has worked with some of the relatives, said not knowing the fate of their loved ones was preventing them from confronting their grief.

"When there is uncertainty for several days, people go from hope to despair, and back again, making it impossible to bring final healing," Yin said.

Malaysia received satellite images from French authorities of possible objects that could be related to the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 and has passed them to Australian search teams. The images were received Sunday morning and were of possible objects in the southern corridor, Malaysia’s Ministry of Transport said in an emailed statement. The so-called southern corridor is one of two possible locations investigators believe the Boeing 777-200 jet could have passed through after it disappeared more than two weeks ago. As of Sunday afternoon, Australian search teams had not made any fresh sightings of floating objects in the Southern Indian Ocean that could have come from the plane, according to the statement. Some search flights from Malaysia’s Subang airport to the area were canceled on Sunday due to a tropical cyclone, the statement said but didn’t give details. A P8 Poseidon maritime surveillance aircraft and a C130 transport from India left Subang to join the search effort, it said. Two Japanese P3 Orions left for Perth from Subang airport. In addition, two Chinese Ilyushin IL-76 transport aircraft arrived in Perth to join the search from Monday morning, according to the statement. Meanwhile, a high-level delegation from Malaysia briefed families of Chinese passengers on Flight 370 for more than six hours in Beijing. More than 150 of 227 passengers on the missing plane are Chinese.

The search area experienced early sea fog particularly in the western areas, however conditions improved during the day.

A total of eight aircraft and HMAS Success supported today’s search effort in a cumulative 59,000 square kilometre search area across two search areas within the Australian Search and Rescue Region south-west of Perth.

The western boundary of the current search area is located 2500km from Perth.

Four civil ultra-long range jets chartered by AMSA and four military aircraft from Australian and the US were involved in today’s search together with the HMAS Success.

Twenty State Emergency Service (SES) volunteers from Western Australia were tasked as air observers today on board the civil aircraft. Each civil aircraft had five SES air observers on board, as well as an AeroRescue Aviation Mission Coordinator. Aerorescue is AMSA’s contracted provider of dedicated search and rescue services from locations across Australia.

The search will resume tomorrow. Chinese military Ilyushin IL-76 aircraft and Japanese P-3C aircraft will join the search on Monday.

Satellite images provided by French authorities of possible debris from a missing Malaysian jet placed the objects in the southern Indian Ocean roughly 600 kilometers west of those previously reported by Australia, the chief of Malaysia’s civil-aviation authority said Sunday.

Director General Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, however, told The Wall Street Journal that he wasn’t immediately aware of the size of the objects seen in satellite images provided by French authorities to Malaysia on Sunday morning.

Officials have not released any information about the French images, which is the third set of satellite photographs of possible debris from Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 that vanished early on March 8 while en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur with 239 people aboard.

Malaysia’s transport ministry said in a statement Sunday that it had passed details of the French sighting to Australian authorities who are searching the southern Indian Ocean for signs of the missing Boeing 777 jet. It didn’t provide any further details on this reported sighting.

Both Malaysian and Australian officials have called recent satellite images “credible,” a cautious vote of confidence in a search that has to date turned up no conclusive evidence of the aircraft’s fate.